2003 Chateau Laville Haut Brion Graves Blanc

No prices were available for this wine. Visit
wine-searcher.com to see pricing for other vintages of this wine.

Expert Ratings and Reviews

96 Points
Wine Advocate, 2006

96 Points
Wine Advocate, 2004

95 Points
Wine Spectator

Bordeaux 2003

2003 Bordeaux -— The Hottest Year Ever

The 2003 vintage was the hottest ever on record in Bordeaux. It was an extreme year, and the wines vary widely as a result. Some properties in Pauillac, Saint Estephe, and Saint Julien made ripe, inky, massively concentrated wines that may go down as historic. In many other instances, the drought and heat were too much, resulting in wines that lack balance, freshness of fruit, and acidity.

The intense heat began in June and continued pretty much unabated through the entire summer. In many cases, the vines simply shut down from stress -— even the nights were hot. It rained in the middle of August, and again in early September, which revived the vines a bit, but for many, it was too little too late. Yields were very low due to the heat and drought, and the harvest started and ended early as sugars raced and acidities fell. Old vines and vineyards located in the most water retentive soils fared the best -— Saint Estephe is notable, as is Pauillac, but Pomerol struggled. In Sauternes and Barsac, the September sprinkles provided just enough moisture for botrytis to form. The resulting wines are rich and powerful, super lush, and low acid.

2003 is a vintage to buy with caution except for the very top wines. For many, their best appeal may have been their ripe, upfront fruit, a characteristic that may fade sooner rather than later in all but the most successful wines of the vintage.

Key Dates

August

Light rain on the 16th, 17th, 19th, and 24th, provides a modicum of relief for the drought and heat stressed vines

September

Welcome rainfall on the 6th through the 9th gives some vines a little break from the heat and drought. For many, it was too little too late

About Chateau Laville Haut Brion

Château Laville Haut-Brion is part of the Pessac-Leognan based, Haut-Brion trifecta. Its origins, however, are different from its siblings, beginning in the 17th century with Marie de Laville, the widow of a magistrate. Today, the Dillon family owns the Haut-Brion trio, including La Mission Haut-Brion and Château Haut-Brion. In comparison with its neighbors, Laville is tiny. Just 3.5 hectares of vines are planted to 70% Semillon, 27% Sauvignon Blanc and 3% Muscadelle. The Grand Vin is a Sémillonbased white that can begin life quite tight, even deceptively lean, but develops an extraordinarily complex waxy, honeyed character and great richness with a decade or more of bottle aging. Unfortunately for us, only about 1000 cases are produced each year.

About Sauvignon Blanc

Sauvignon Blanc Facts

Flavor Profile

Crisp, highly acidic wines with grassy, herbacious characteristics

Food Pairings

Fresh goat cheese, shellfish, seafood

Sauvignon Blanc is most famous as the grape responsible for Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume, two of the most popular and energizing white wines of France. In the eastern portion of the Loire Valley, Sauvignon Blanc (which is often simply referred to as Sauvignon) produces bracing, aromatically pungent wines with strong citrus and gooseberry tones along with grassy and herbal notes, which in extreme cases or underripe vintages can cross over to green or herbaceous. A whiff of what the French call pipi de chat (cat pee) is also present in many Loire Valley Sauvignons; while this element can add a note of complexity in small doses, it can easily become overbearing. The best examples from the Loire Valley display clear mineral nuances and a distinctively dry chalkiness resulting from the limestone-domesticated soil.

Most high-quality Loire Sauvignon Blanc is fermented in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks or in glass- or enamel-lined concrete tanks to preserve the vibrant, nervy quality of the wines. But some producers like to experiment with barrel fermentation and aging in small, sometimes new barriques -- with mixed and occasionally disastrous results. No other wine-producing region on earth can quite match the Loire Valley for the pungent citric/minerally/grassy style of Sauvignon (New Zealand comes closest), but many have mimicked the oaky style, and much of this latter type of wine seems to miss the point of the variety.

Different from Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley, classic Sancerre has always been characterized by vibrancy, steeliness, minerality and pronounced Sauvignon pungency. Its fruit profile tends to the citric, evoking lemon, lime and grapefruit. In riper years, or in the hands of some modernist producers, the wines are riper and rounder, more suggestive of orchard fruits like pear, quince, and apple. Whichever style one prefers, most aficionados agree that Sancerre should always be a wine of elegance, precision, and focus rather than volume and weight.

Most of the best producers are based in the villages of Bue and Verdigny. Chavignol, the other village with exceptional vineyards and a large number of quality-minded producers, is actually an appellation unto itself, and the wines are sometimes labeled as Chavignol rather than Sancerre. Broadly speaking, the wines of Chavignol are more powerful and intense while those of Bue and to a lesser extent Verdigny are more elegant and racy, with a subtle minerality. With rare exceptions, even the best Sancerres benefit only slightly from cellaring and are best drunk within three years of the vintage.

Menetou-Salon, located just southwest of Sancerre, yields firm-edged and very dry wines from limestone-rich soil that tend to be a bit more herbaceous and more solid than Sancerre but often represent good value. (There are also red and rose wines made here from Pinot Noir, as there are in Sancerre, but little is sold into the North American market.) The somewhat warmer Quincy appellation has historically produced rounder, more alcoholic, and less assertively citric wines than Sancerre, but a new generation of growers here is working at making more vibrant, racy wines. The same can be said about Reuilly's white wines from Sauvignon Blanc; this appellation also produces rose and Pinot Noir, most of it consumed in the local market. Farther to the west, the appellation of Touraine, surrounding the city of Tours, is a growing source of competently made and inexpensive Sauvignon (as well as red wines from Gamay, Cot, and Cabernet Franc, and whites from Chenin Blanc.)

Compared to the wines of their more exalted neighbor Sancerre, Pouilly-Fume tends to be richer and a bit fuller-bodied, with greater aromatic pungency. The vineyards here feature more flint in the soil, producing wines that are typically broad, meaty, and less delicate than Sancerre. The most prized vineyards are especially rich in flint, or silex, which the locals claim is responsible for the smoky gunflint aroma that marks classic examples of Pouilly-Fume. As with Sancerre, Pouilly-Fume is usually best consumed during the two or three years following the vintage, before the vibrant fruit begins to fade. Broadly speaking and with the prominent exception of the wines from cult producer Didier Dagueneau, Pouilly-Fume tends to be priced in the North American market at about 20 percent less than most Sancerre, as it does not enjoy quite the same popularity.

Sauvignon Blanc from California ranges in style from minerally, grassy, and citric wines (more akin to examples made in the Loire Valley or New Zealand) to opulent, tropical-fruity wines fermented and aged in barrels and often including a percentage of Semillon a la white Graves. Some of these latter Chardonnay wannabees seem to miss the point of Sauvignon, which is to be refreshing rather than overbearing. In recent years the brisk, citrusy style of Sauvignon has enjoyed steadily growing popularity on restaurant lists, and today there are many new plantings of Sauvignon Blanc in cooler regions -- as opposed to the valley floor of Napa Valley, where Cabernet grapes fetch a higher price anyway. Prices for Sauvignon Blanc have escalated as demand for these wines has grown. (Incidentally, Fume Blanc is used on the label by a number of producers, usually to signify a wine made in a richer barrel-fermented, oak-aged style.)

Although some examples have proven that they can last in a bottle, there's little if anything to be gained by cellaring these wines, and the overwhelming majority of California's Sauvignon Blancs are best consumed in the two or three years following the harvest.